church

We talk about college, we talk about media, we talk about industries in general, now here’s an interesting window into the church. Because of course, if everyone else is coping with the consequences of the digitization of aspects of their worlds, why should the clergy be exempt?

Televangelism has been around much longer than I have. But it remains a very particular type of worship, looked upon by old-school churchgoers as lowbrow, lazy, sensationalistic, stuffed with cheap visual thrills. In other words, they regard it much the same way “serious” media consumers tend to regard television generally.

Digivangelism, on the other hand, could be something altogether different. Much like the rest of the Internet, it can go in two directions – more vulgar and shallow than the worst televised atrocity, or even more genuine and fervent than the communal physical worship experience. In his essay, “In Defense of Virtual Church,” Pastor Douglas Estes is clearly aiming for the latter, but seems to strike many believers in the comments as merely making a case for the former.

Estes specializes in one manifestation of the virtual church, perhaps the most obvious. As far as I can tell, he’s most concerned with the concept of church in virtual worlds (like Second Life), which I find a little disappointing. But he’s acquired at least one really thoughtful critic, who’s promising to take on these ideas in a four-part series called “In Defense of Physical Community.” As you might expect, Nicholas Carr gets name-dropped in part one, but I have high hopes he’ll go beyond that in parts two through four:

The Cultural Implications of the Internet

The Physical Limitations of the Internet

The Ecclesiological and Scriptural Implications of Online Church

I think this is a fascinating conversation. It’s another front in the high-church/low-church wars that are still raging over the Internet and its effects on our culture. But this time it’s actually about church! When people refer to old-school journalists as a “priesthood,” they’re employing a droll metaphor. In this context, when someone talks about the priesthood, they’re for real.

The Catholic in me – the boy who led his high school’s worship team, who carried around a copy of the Catechism to reference in doctrinal debates – is also dying to see how this turns out. I can imagine a journalism that consistently uses the best aspects of the Web to deliver a deeper understanding than any form of journalism we’ve seen to date. And I can sort of squint my eyes and picture a spiritual experience online that stirred me more than the scent of wood and holy water, the thumbing of an ashen cross onto my forehead, a whispered “Peace be with you.” I’ve had spiritual experiences online before, but I’ve never seen what I would call an online church. For a lover of the Internet and its potential, the possibility is deeply exciting.